Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Chapter 2 Journal Activity

When? By whom? Why?

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Radiocarbon dating and analysis of material culture indicate stages of construction spanning the Neolithic and Bronze Age. This dating fits well within a framework of societal and religious shifts during these periods of prehistory. Right from its founding, Stonehenge and its wider ritual landscape seem to have been interlinked chiefly with burial and death rites - something supported by cremations found within the site itself from c. 3000BC and later in the hundreds of burial mounds surrounding it.

Stonehenge, then, was built approximately 3,500 years ago; but construction activity at its site preceded the actual henge we see today by some 1,500 years. Throughout its construction and span of use, it formed a central aspect to a wider landscape amidst complex ideas and ritual practices of death, fertility and ancestor worship.